Hi guys, welcome to number six in a series of stories involving Regina and Emma post her possession of the Dark One. Having shared True Love's kiss Emma has been freed from the control of the Dark One though it remains bound to her.
Dark Series 06 Dark Despair
Regina was worried about Emma, while the blonde woman was normally upbeat about most things, in recent days she'd been quiet, almost to the point of being withdrawn.
Mind you that was hardly surprising, especially in light of recent events.
Not only was her lover carrying the Dark One within her, one of the most evil entities in existence, but there'd been precious little to celebrate in recent days. In fact Regina and Emma had only just returned to the house they shared on Mifflin Street from their attendance at the latest of a spate of funerals.
They'd been there to witness the burial of the remains of the Sutcliff family, the three unsettlingly light coffins all that remained of Grant and Serena Sutcliff and their six year old son Davis.
The Sutcliff's, together with four others, had been unfortunate victims of an incursion into this realm by a raiding party of daemonic creatures called the Mr'kr'fane, hailing from a pocket dimension they had breached the dimensional barrier separating their hell-world from this one.
Before they'd been located and stopped they'd engaged in what the Mr'kr'fane considered the most thrilling of sports; the hunting and eating of sentient creatures. Seven residents of Storybrook had died in the incursion, which had come at a point near the farm Zelena had used as her base of operations.
Regina had surmised that the massive working her sister had tried casting there, even if stopped, had weakened the fabric of the dimensional barriers in the vicinity sufficiently to allow the Mr'kr'fane raiders to slip through and carry out their atrocities.
While the group had been only small, some three dozen members in all, they had done damage to the local ecosystem out of all proportion to their numbers. They'd voraciously consumed every creature unfortunate enough to cross their path and their presence had fouled the area they infested to the point that the vegetation in the vicinity had started dying off at an alarming rate.
While that had helped alert the authorities to their incursion faster than might otherwise have been the case, nonetheless an area of several acres was consumed by a blight that was damnedly resistant to both normal and mystical repair.
The first person to encounter the raiders and escape had fled straight to the Sherriff's office to report the creatures that they had seen on a back road through the woods. Emma had immediately contacted Regina and they had investigated together, encountering several of the creatures lying in wait near the road where they had been spotted previously.
The subsequent battle had been short and brutal, the Mr'kr'fane raiders were a fearsome foe for anyone caught unawares but against two powerful magic users it had been no contest. Possessing the Dark One's knowledge, Emma had recognised the grotesquely misshapen but powerful creatures for what they were, lesser daemons, no doubt led by the far more fearsome Mr'kr'fane hunters.
Aware of the nature of the threat, the pair had summoned allies and pressed forward, led by Ruby's keen senses together with Maleficent and Elsa the four mages had advanced through the area, tracking down and slaying any of the raiders they encountered. Proceeding through an ever more blighted area they had encountered the bodies of several mostly-eaten humans, the victims of the daemon's hunger for sentient life.
The cleansing of their presence had been neither easy nor simple but they'd driven the daemons back towards their entry point, a weirdly pulsating, sickly-oozing 'tear' in the dimensional fabric near the barn that had been the site of Zelena's mystic working.
The final battle had been brutal, the hunters in particular were resilient beyond reason and damned hard to kill and the leader of their number had been a huge and vicious brute wielding a wild magic talent that had required the combined magic of all four to destroy, leaving all with their own scars of the battle.
While Ruby, Maleficent and Elsa had scoured the surrounding woods for any last remnants of the raiders, Regina had used her magic to keep further Mr'kr'fane raiders on the other side of the tear at bay while Emma worked to close it off completely. That working had been long and hard but in the end the tear was mystically forced closed and bound shut
Regina had been struck by the coldly angry fury that had driven Emma's magic, the fury mounting with the discovery of each new victim, by the end she'd fought like a woman possessed, slaying brutally and without mercy anything that stood before her.
After confirming that none of the raiders remained, the four had combined their magic to try and repair the damage to the environment that the raider's presence had caused, to only limited success.
While the corruption was neutralized, the area would never regain its former abundance, the other-dimensional effect of the raider's presence permanently scarring the area. The woods in that area would be tainted with their essence, no animals or birds would willingly enter that area, instinctively giving it a wide berth, leaving the worst of the area deathly quiet and still.
The remains of the humans who had fallen afoul of the raiders had been collected, what little there was of them, for decent burial, with the Sutcliff's the last of the seven dead to be buried in Storybrook's impeccably maintained cemetery, in the presence of much of the town's population.
Afterwards Regina and Emma had quietly returned to their shared home and tried to put the incident behind them; Emma however seemed to be withdrawn and troubled, unable or unwilling to unburden herself to Regina. Giving her lover a few hours to herself Regina had moved around the house, busying herself with domestic chores, leaving Emma to brood in the study.
Eventually tiring of her partner's isolation and determined to draw her out of the dark funk that had enveloped her, Regina carefully opened the door to find the blonde sitting in one of the armchairs, staring off into the distance.
"Are you willing to rejoin the rest of the world or do you still have some brooding to do?" Though she'd kept the tone light Regina was worried, normally the Dark One was kept well in check by Emma's light magic, but the Dark One's influence was strongest under fear, anger and sorrow, all the negative emotions.
The past few days had seen more than their fair share of those emotions and Regina had become quietly worried for her love's health and well-being. At her words Emma looked up.
"Have I been that bad?" At Regina's reproving glance she sighed. "Sorry" Regina moved into the room and sat in the other armchair, turning to face Emma.
"I understand that what we witnessed was hard, as was the loss of life" Regina sighed sadly. "We were fortunate that we were able to keep the losses to a minimum by reacting so quickly" She shook her head. "The thought of that hunting party making their way into Storybrook itself is particularly distressing" Emma nodded.
"They did enough, seven dead in the course of one night"
"Fortunately we were able to stop them, before it could have become much worse" Emma nodded once.
"I understand that, but I still feel miserable" Regina strove to reassure her lover.
"You did exactly what you had to do to stop them Emma, slaying them may have been hard but it was necessary, lest they spread their blight to an even larger area, let alone kill anyone else"
In fact Regina was beyond proud at her lover's actions, she had behaved like a true champion, fearless, powerful and remorseless, Emma had been the linchpin or their team, Maleficent was far more experienced but with less raw power, Elsa's magic was in its own way more powerful but limited to cold-based effects, while Regina's own magic, while powerful, was nothing to the Savior's raw might, Emma had taken the vast power available from the combination of White Magic and Dark within her and wielded them like a warrior born, truly nothing could have stood against the power she had wielded in that final fight.
Emma though shook her head as she waved her hand, as if she was brushing Regina's explanation away.
"It's not that, I, well we that is, did what we had to do" Emma sighed and finally turned in her seat to face the dark-haired woman as she continued. "I've done something really bad Regina"
Regina carefully hid a smile, 'something bad' was often a code phrase that led to so-called punishments, something that usually left them both exhausted and very well satisfied. Happy to see Emma's mood change Regina played along.
"Oh really Sherriff, and what did you do, something that I should…punish you for?" Emma shook her head.
"No, not like bad…bad, I did something terrible" Frowning, Regina leaned forward and spoke.
"What exactly do you mean Emma?" The blonde looked down at her hands where they were rubbing together, working through the nervousness she felt.
"When we saw what the Mr'kr'fane had done, the remains of the Sutcliff's and the others, I was so angry" Emma looked up, allowing Regina to see the anguish in those green eyes. "I felt a cold anger like I'd rarely ever felt before, it was horrible" Regina nodded, knowing Emma had to unburden herself, contenting herself with an encouraging word.
"And…"
"I was so angry and I wanted them to pay for what they'd done, wanted them to suffer, to feel the terror and horror that they'd brought to our world" Emma shrugged. "Look, I could blame the Dark One's influence, but honestly I was just so angry I had to do something" Regina nodded slowly.
"That's understandable, we were all horrified by what we'd found" Regina paused then asked the obvious question. "What exactly did you do?"
"When I was in the final part of sealing the breach, I decided to give them a little present, something that would bring the same sort of terror and fear they'd brought to our world, to theirs" Emma said, her voice quiet.
Regina sat back, thinking quickly; she hadn't seen or felt anything out of the ordinary, but that was hardly surprising; she'd been preoccupied keeping the Mr'kr'fane reinforcements back on their side of the breach.
"What did you do Emma?"
"I locked them inside their pocket dimension, shut all the access ways in and out so they'd not be able to escape ever again" She shook her head. "I locked them inside their little prison and tossed away the key, except I locked something in there with them, something terrible" Regina waited but Emma's awareness had turned inwards to something only she could see. Finally she tried drawing the blonde out of her head.
"What?"
There was silence in the room for almost a minute, Regina was about to ask again when Emma stood and walked over to the book case by the television, selecting a DVD case and walking back, handing it over to Regina.
Regina looked down, her eyes widening as she took in the black cover with the glowing egg shape, her eyes darted up to meet green ones staring back at her, the words falling from Regina's lips unbidden.
"Oh my god"
Elsewhere
Nar'klo'tsa was a small member of the Nar' Hunt, as the Mr'kr'fane measured things. He'd been one of the Hunt that had entered the green world on the other side of the breach, so different from the red and dark place he called home. It had been good eating though; as a lowly ranked member of the Nar' Hunt he'd been denied any of the succulent sentient life forms that lived there, instead gorging himself on the small living creatures that swarmed in such abundance on that other world, small creatures with fur that hopped and ran and burrowed, while not the delicacy of a sentient they were tasty in their own way and so abundant, swarming in numbers unknown here.
When the counter attack had come he'd managed to escape back through the breach just in time, that realm's warriors had been powerful and ruthless, he'd watched through the breach as they tore his Hunt Master, Nar'cho'tak, apart with their magic, offering neither mercy nor chance for escape.
The Nar' Hunt had been decimated by the retaliation, now the breach was closed and only Nar'klo'tsa and a few others in this area were left. It was obvious that another Hunt would soon take advantage of the undefended area to enlarge their own holdings, another Hunt Master would claim their territory, something that promised a swift and painful death for any of the Nar' left behind.
He was contemplating fleeing, trying to find somewhere safe, if such a place existed for a member of a Hunt that was no more, probably not he thought.
He was scavenging for something to eat, in preparation for a long trudge away from these lands, when he came across something he'd never seen before. It was rounded and dull coloured, standing only waist high, the thing hadn't been there the last time he had passed through this place, back before that ill-starred Hunt to the other world.
Curious Nar'klo'tsa moved towards the strange thing, he could sense life there, not life as he was used to but life none the less and life meant something to eat. He moved up and stood over the thing, looking at it from all angles, feeling the slick surface and wondering if he should just tear it open when he noticed the top peeling back, opening to expose the inside.
He carefully leaned forward, catching some kind of motion inside.
The last thing he saw was blinding movement as something lunged towards him, long claws outspread as it wrapped around his head.